Business

Chief executive David Duffy – who is currently mulling over a takeover of rival Virgin Money – said the lender’s digital brand B had already secured more than 170,000 customers and £1.6billion deposits after its digital-only current account launched last year. He said it was “certainly an option” for B …

French finance minister Bruno Le Maire is leading the calls for the EU to intervene and protect European firms against any sanctions imposed by the United States. And the ally of President Emmanuel Macron also demanded Brussels to toughen its stance against the Trump administration. Mr Le Maire referred to …

Customers can order and pay for up to 25 items using Sainsbury’s Chop Chop personal shopper smartphone app and then collect them half an hour later from its Pimlico store. If it proves to be popular, the trial could be extended to its Wandsworth store and other locations. Chop Chop, …

On Thursday the firm will publish its second-quarter trading update and Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Danny Cox said: “The worry leading in [to trading update] is that the seasonal boost at B&Q does not appear again and a slower housing market drags UK sales down. “Analysts are expecting some improvements in …

Both ministers have stated that there will be a transitional period at the end of Brexit, but that once it is over, the UK will be conclusively ‘out’. On the other side of the pairing, the euro has only made marginal gains due to disappointing Eurozone data. Industrial production slowed …

The statement follows months of rumours of a possible split in Mrs May’s cabinet, with Mr Hammond and Dr Fox seen to be on opposing sides of the Brexit debate. As it stands, the Chancellor appears to be seeking a softer approach to Brexit, while the Trade Secretary is pushing …

The deal between the firm, the trustees of the British Steel Pension Scheme and regulators means that Tata no longer has to stand behind its costly defined benefit fund. Tata had claimed that unless it could detach itself from the scheme, its British business would have gone under within 12 …

Office for National Statistics figures are tipped to record that inflation, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index, rose by 0.1 percentage points to 2.7 per cent in July. Since October 2015, inflation has surged from -0.1 per cent and in May hit a five-year high of 2.9 per cent. …

The NAO said that the level of taxpayer support for the banking sector had fallen over the course of the 2016/17 financial year from £85billion to £58billion, due to a £11.8billion sale of a block of nationalised Bradford & Bingley mortgages to Prudential and BlackRock, as well as the sale …

Hans W Redeker, a foreign exchange strategist with Morgan Grenfell, said that the pound would be coming under “profound selling pressure over the next few quarters”. Morgan Grenfell, one of the world’s oldest merchant banks which is now owned by Deutsche Bank, has now joined with HSBC Holdings in predicting …